Here's another thought: if the roses are planted along the outside edge of the bed, they will be more susceptible to the roots freezing if you have more of a zone 5 winter - just like a pot would. I have raised beds and *usually* the snow covers them right up and insulates. Every now and then, we have a winter that doesn't conform to the norms and I have one side or another of the beds exposed. I have lost a few roses that way over the years. BTW, I concur on Red Cascade being unsuitable for this location. Mine is planted in a rock covered slope and spreads out 4 to 5' in each direction - and that in zone 4! Maybe a rose like Sweet Chariot would work, although it would be lavender, and not keeping with your color scheme. If it were me, I'd go with some upright growing roses in the middle interspersed with the daylilies, and some nice cascading annuals around the outside. Don't forget, you'll have to be reaching over those thorny 'cascading' roses to reach the middle of the bed for weeding and such. Just my 2 cents.

vickysgarden, Pretty Jessica is not listed on Long Ago Rose's site. I have been disappointed so frequently in my attempt to purchase this rose, that I have turned by attention in another direction, and believe I will be very happy with the alternative. I sent a check to R.U. for another rose that I hope to receive in April. If Hortico actually sends Pretty Jessica in a couple of weeks or so, then it was meant to be, but I am not holding my breath. Their system allowed me to request a shipping date for a period, confirmed by their office staff, that no one is even present there to verify if the rose is physically in stock, so expecting an actual shipmentâ¦...

OK, guess I should have explained that I think there is something wrong with my soil here. I have sent it off to be tested, but this might have been a commercial orchard many many years ago, in the days of toxic chemical use. Now the island has grown up to forests again and is covered in blackberry everywhere else! In the 12 years I have gardened here I have used loads and loads of compost, alfalfa, manures, mineral supplements, and osmocote on my garden beds with marginal results. It is a base of low nutrient glacial till with high clay content, acid soil that hates Dr Huey! My garden partner lives 3 miles away and grows beautiful roses, even on Dr Huey, but can't grow the dahlias I grow. I dug up my declining David Austin roses 2 years ago and relocated them in a cinderblock bed in my cutting garden, (3 blocks high, 4 1/2 ' wide and 30 feet long times 2. I put down a layer of landscape cloth beneath them to block the weeds in the soil and filled them with 3-way garden mix purchased soil from a local nursery (Equal parts loam, manure and sand, well mixed, topped with compost.) The roses are recovering from their decline and looking excellent as well as putting out blooms most of the winter. This is why I am going for the ornamental raised beds in my front garden. The new raised beds will be similar except I will use colored building stone in a soft brown or buff. I intend to make the garden a mix of the modern shiny metal tanks and stone...very west coast! Very non traditional! Exciting! With your advice, I think I may plan the stone beds to hold the roses, where they will be placed over landscape fabric again (Yeh, I am quite familiar with the hazards of landscape fabric but this will be a permanent set up, and by extending the edges of the fabric and covering with mulch will help keep the danged buttercups from wedging under the edge of the stone where I can't get them out. I've literally spent weeks in hand splints and have permanent damage from buttercup control! (NOTHING but plastic stops them and they grow up to 4' tall...amazing! Our temps ranges from a rare minus temp on a few winters a decade, to a one time high of 104 during freak summer weather. It really seldom goes over 90 or under 20 degrees and the roses are still occasinally blooming in my garden this winter, even after a foot of snow and an ice storm 2 weeks ago. From this discussion I am thinking I will leave my climbers in the ground, and put my regular roses mostly in the stone beds, with perhaps some mini's or mini-floras around the edges of the stock tanks. Plenty of other things to fill in with for height. But I do want to get the roses up where there is better air movement too.

CI, TZ, SdlM all growing nicely now. I think this will be a good fragrance bed. I put Lion's rose in the back to add beauty and a good leafy background even though it isn't much on scent. I think if the base gets shaded by the others, it won't get disease. There's room to the right of Abe Darby for one more big rose. I think it's going to be Evelyn. Hopefully, it will work some magic for me. This is a good morning sun spot and gets shade in the hottest times of the day. My summer is a little hotter than Hoovb's but maybe it's close enough. I'm going to hope for the best. The only downside to this location is that it will take the full force of the Santa Ana wind from across the street. We are along the Santa Ana river channel and the wind blows strongly through the gap. It seems to be shifting later than Halloween now. I used to call it the Halloween Wind.